II

A stranger observant of trifles, coming into Windlecombe any time during

early summer, might note one common feature of the place, not remarkable

at other seasons. All the garden-gates were kept carefully closed; and

all houses abutting on the street had their doors either shut altogether,

or replaced by low boards or fence-bars. Even the gate of the

churchyard, open day and night at other times, was now closed as

heedfully as any; and, more curious still, the entrance to the inn, where

there were no children to come wandering out and none dare intrude, was

as cautiously barriered as the rest.

Plainly these obstructions were not set up against absconding babies, for

the tiniest of them was invariably out-of-doors playing in the dust of

the street. And yet there was no other visible explanation of the

phenomenon. It was a puzzle of a mildly interesting kind, giving just

that gentle spur needed by the tired brain of a citizen holiday-maker,

escaped into villagedom for awhile, and lolling there, genially, yet

rather contemptuously, agape at the silence and sloth of country things.

But if tide and weather served, any moment of the day might bring the

desired solution of the mystery. From afar over the hills, a deep low

clamour would begin to invade the songful village quiet. Then, on the

crest of the nearest hilltop, a column of white dust would suddenly spurt

up against the blue, and spread slowly downwards, marking the winding

course of the lane as with smoke from a travelling fire. Now by degrees

the tumult would grow louder and deeper, revealing itself at last as the

hoarse medley of voices from a flock of sheep; a flock so vast that,

while the first ewes were already charging into the village, the last

ones had not yet breasted the top of the hill.

There would be no doubt now of the wisdom of the gate-shutting policy.

Any of these that by chance had remained open, would be hastily clapped

to; and all about him the stranger would see the children scramble into

corners, and mount upon doorsteps out of the way of the tornading host.

He himself, indeed, would be glad to take shelter in the nearest doorway,

where he could look on at a spectacle, stirring even to a nature dulled

by the din of a town.

Now the hoarse note has swelled to a veritable hurricane of sound. The

whole village bids fair to be submerged and swept away by an avalanche of

wool. In the forefront marches a shepherd-boy, straw knapsack on back

and blue cotton umbrella under arm. Behind him the street is packed with

the jostling, vociferating crowd of sheep, a solid mass of woolly life

extending as far as eye can penetrate the cloud of dust. At intervals in

the throng walk the under shepherds, each with his dog, all—dogs and

men—adding their voices to the general uproar. And at the end of the

procession, when at length it has stormed its way past, comes the

master-shepherd, a figure shadowy, indistinct in the dust-laden air;

nothing certain about him but the glint of the sun on his crook, and his

easy, hearty replies to the shouted greetings of old acquaintance by the

way.

Every day in June, while the tides last, and there is water enough in the

river for the work of sheep-washing, these great flocks pour through

Windlecombe, some of them coming from lonely farmsteads miles away over

the Downs. Today it was the Ambledown wash, one of the largest of the

year; and when the sheep had gone through, and the dust had cleared from

the sunshine, I set off myself, in oldest garb and thickest boots, to

join the string of onlookers drifting from all parts of the village

towards the washing-creek. But on these sheep-wash days, there is much

more to do than look on at one of the most fascinating and exhilarating

sights in all the round of farm work. A helping hand from every man used

to the task is alike expected and freely given as a point of honour at

these times. Each of us has his favourite wash, in which, as a matter of

old custom, he takes his share of the heat and burden of the day; and to

me, when Ambledown’s turn comes round, is given, now by old-established

and hard-won right, the long crook by the plunge.

As life journeys on, we tend to make ever less and less of our rare

moments of swelling pride and self-satisfaction, or even to abrogate them

altogether. But on this one day of the year, when I exchange a less

noble tool for the long crook at Ambledown sheep-wash, and feel the cares

of my office gathering upon me, I go back nearer to the child’s pure joy

in a paper cocked-hat and tin epaulettes than at any other moment of my

life. If you have never stood wide-legged, like a ship-captain in a

gale, on a rickety hurdle six feet above a chaos of swirling, glittering

water, crowded with the bobbing heads of sheep, your charge being not

only to keep each ewe swimming down the wash to the tubmen, but to

sustain a constant watch on the weaklings and prevent them drowning—you

have never known responsibility’s true zest. Picture to yourself an old

chalk-quarry on the river’s brink, long disused and abandoned to every

form of wild life—a shy, green place overgrown with brier and bramble,

merged at all other times of the year in eternal quiet, but now the scene

of brisk activity, crowded with busy folk and innumerable sheep, and

echoing with voices and laughter. The washing-creek is a sort of bay of

the river, a long strip of water caged in by lofty fences, topped by a

platform of hurdles, whence the crookmen manœuvre the struggling, gasping

sheep in the water below. At one end of the creek is the plunge, where

the sheep are thrown in; midway down the wash two tubs are sunk to within

a foot of the water’s level, wherein stand the washers; and at the far

end appears a gradually rising slope up which the dripping, water-logged

ewes struggle inch by inch towards safety and the green feed awaiting

them beyond.

It is nearing the top of the tide, but the work has not begun yet, nor

will it begin until the flock has rested and cooled from its long journey

over the Downs. As I come down the zigzag path into the chalk-quarry,

the place seems almost as shy and still as ever. There is the multitude

of sheep, a thousand or more, quietly nibbling in the great pen. The

shepherds, the washing-gang, the little crowd of onlookers, are lounging

on the green river-bank, chatting idly together as if there were no more

weighty business in hand than to enjoy the summer morning. The dogs are

mostly asleep on their chains. Only the old captain of the wash is

astir. He roves about, here tightening up a girth in his tackle, and

there straightening a crooked hurdle; and every minute or two he goes and

looks over the plunge, measuring the depth of water with his eye. At

last he gives the signal, every man goes to his post, and the silence of

the old quarry breaks as with the crash of a sudden storm.

For it is nearly impossible to convey a real idea of the hubbub and

turmoil of the scene under any less decided simile. From the moment the

first sheep is thrown in, until the last terrified, bedraggled ewe

staggers up the slippery incline at the other end of the creek, there is

one long, unceasing babel of sound. Often a score of sheep are in the

water at the same time, each one rending the air with her piteous

calling. Those that have passed through the ordeal crowd together on the

bank above, still lifting to the skies their mingled note of indignation

and alarm; and those as yet dry in the great pen anticipate their

sufferings with a like deafening tumult. The yapping chorus of the dogs

punctuates the entire symphony; and every man engaged in the work joins

in a general running fire of comment and mutual encouragement, although

hardly any sound less forceful than the bellow of a bull can be heard

above the din.

Not the least onerous and responsible part in a great sheep-wash is the

element of danger to the sheep—the risk of drowning always present when a

large number have to be put through the creek at a swinging pace. The

head shepherd, and often the flock-master himself, stands at the plunge

and keeps a vigilant eye on the whole proceedings. Yet, even with the

greatest care, sheep are sometimes drowned. It is a lucky day, for

washers and shepherds alike, if the flock gets back to the farm without a

single casualty.

[Picture: “The Sheepwash”]

But there is a humorous as well as a tragic side to sheep-washing. The

continual splashing of the water soon drenches all the approaches to the

creek, making them as slippery as ice. The platform of hurdles running

the whole length of the wash is a particularly hazardous place from which

to look on at the fun; and many a spectator, venturing too near, has

received an impromptu ducking. This is an accident to which the

throwers-in, as well as all the crook-men, are specially liable; and the

day is hardly complete unless some one has succeeded in dipping himself

as well as the sheep. The time-honoured joke then is to force him down

the creek with his woolly companions in misfortune, and send him under

the bar with all the rest.